With Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft introduced the concept of protection from downloading malware based on "application reputation." Google has now announced that the next major update to its Chrome browser will include a similar feature that protects users from downloading an installer file that, according to Google engineer Dominic Hamon, is "known to be bad, or is hosted on a website that hosts a relatively high percentage of malicious downloads."

The protection targets the "social engineering" type of threat, rather than being a straightforward virus blocker. Often, users will see a Web site claiming to offer programs for protecting or speeding up their computers, while in fact the software being offered is spyware, adware, or another type of malware.

The new beta of Chrome 17 will also implement more pre-rendering of Web pages as you type in the browser's combined search/address box. This is a nice browing-speed enhancer. For example, if often visit Facebook, typing just the letter "F" will autofill to the full www.facebook.com URL, as it does in most browsers. But in the Chrome 17 beta, not only will the address flesh out in the typing area, but the actual site will load in the browser window.

This pre-rendering follows a tradition of Google trying to get you to the site you want as quickly as your computer and the Internet allow. We've already seen Google Instant, which loads search results before you finish typing, and pre-loading with Instant Pages, in which Chrome tries to predict the next link you'll click on and pre-render that. Of course, the basic speed of the browser's operation, especially in JavaScript performance, was what made Chrome so popular in the first place.

In a separate update, the released version of Chrome 16 was also updated to version 16.0.912.75 to address several security flaws. The three highest-priority among these included "use-after-free in animation frames," heap-buffer-overflow, and a stack buffer overflow in glyph handling vulnerabilities.

For a deep dive into all of the browser's features and strengths, read our Editors' Choice review of Google Chrome.

Michael Muchmore is PC Magazine?s lead analyst for software and Web applications. A native New Yorker, he has at various times headed up PC Magazine?s coverage of Web development, enterprise software, and display technologies. Michael cowrote one of the first overviews of Web Services for a general audience. Before that he worked on PC Magazine?s Solutions section, which covered programming techniques as well as tips on using popular office software. Most recently he covered services and software for ExtremeTech.com.
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